In any case, it’ll work like this. Each month, starting this month, we’ll pick a title together. A month later – to give participants time to get and read the book – we’ll open a thread for discussion. We’ll try to include books available under CC licenses and/or available in electronic formats. If the community picks a book that can’t be had except for cash, we’ll set up a scholarship fund to try to ensure open access.

Here are some of the books we’ve thought about for the kickoff on Thursday February 28th. Vote for your favorite below! Suggestions always welcome!

43 thoughts on “Announcing Geek Feminism Book Club!”

My vote is for #3 because Ursula le Guin is one of those authors I should have read by now and keep meaning to but haven’t.

I also have a question: as a previously-published-now-turned-indie author with a geeky feminist e-book, can we suggest our own books in the future? Because I’d definitely give a very big group discount for this club.

That is indeed a cool interview! I’d be raising my hand on her question of who made up languages as a kid. I was inspired by Tolkien as well, but largely via Guy Gavriel Kay. Making up words is easy, but making up a logical syntax is very difficult.

And since you said self-linking is okay, here’s my most recent nerdy, lefty, eco, feminist work: http://findinggaia.com

As I said, if it is ever chosen for this book club I’d happily do a Smashwords coupon. I would for any book club but I’d do a bigger discount for this one because this is more my tribe.

I just LOVE Le Guin! She also happens to live in wonderful Berkeley, California, where was born & grew up. These days, I make my home here in Katrineholm, Sweden…..but Bezerkeley & Ursula are with me always.

I usually give away copies of my fave books to friends/strangers whom I think will enjoy them, or just SHOULD read them! I did this with my last old copies of Ursula’s works…..need to replace them. Along with plenty of Heinlein & Asimov classics….and even some fantasy series by Piers Anthony.

Also, we could encourage people to use public libraries (if you are on a part of the world that has them). The books AND ebooks could be there. If we don’t start using and showing support for our public libraries, they will disappear. Libraries are all about equality.

Can I vote for them all? I know “Omelas” by heart (and of course it’s a short story, not a book), but the others include two I really want to read and two I don’t know, so I probably want to read them.

So excited about this initiative! I personally feel like reading #1 (Coding Freedom) or #5 (Batgirl issue 1), but I’ve added most of the titles to my list of want-to-reads on GG. This thing is right up my ally of stuff I want to get more into right now.

On a completely different note though; you should probably get/install a poll function into your CMS (I know that it used to be simple to do in WordPress at least). It would make this voting thing much easier! How are you going to organize the discussions later on?

I look forward to reading any/all of these. I think Batgirl would start us out right. I also liked the suggestion of reading the Le Guin short story in addition to whatever else we choose. Reading these two side by side is my vote.

It’s been 11 days since this was posted, and it’s 17 until the discussion post. What’s the choice of book? I’d really like to take part in this, but let me just show you how hard it will be for me to get any of these books in a timely manner:

bell hooks: not CC-licensed, not available as ebook, not available in any library in my country. Cheapest available hardcopy: $19.54, ships from UK, don’t know how long it would take. Cheapest Australian hardcopy: $21.38 + shipping, “ships in 7-13 days” which suggests that in fact they are shipping from overseas first. Cheapest that’s not just reshipping: $34.99 plus postage, “ships in 4 days”.

Le Guin: not CC-licensed, not available as ebook, not available in my library system but could ILL from elsewhere in Australia (don’t know how long that would take but probably *at least* a week).

Gentrification of the mind: available as Kindle ebook (with DRM) — I don’t have a Kindle, but could probably work around that (ahem). Not available in any library in Australia.

Gail Simone: not (legally) available as ebook, though knowing comics fandom, I suspect it could be acquired other ways. Not in any library in Australia (or at least none that’s on Worldcat). Cheapest international shipping: $18.88 from UK, don’t know how long it would take to arrive. Cheapest Australian that’s not just reshipping: $31.99 “typically received in 10-15 days”… uh no. Make that around $34 if I want it within a week so I have time to read it.

In short… this is why I voted for Coleman. It’s the only one that I (and others outside the US) are guaranteed to be able to read in time for the discussion. All other options either involve breaking the law, waiting weeks for delivery, or paying exorbitant international prices.